Whiskey Lullaby
by Jasmin Kaiba
Summary: It's seven years on the day since Sasuke left. Sakura is spending this day with a special ritual and her memories. Naruto watches over her and makes a promise. SasuSaku read&review please


**WHISKEY LULLABY**

**by Jasmin Kaiba**

It was that time of the year again and Naruto for once didn't look forward to meeting his team for training. No matter how much time has already passed, how many years, the process seemed to repeat itself all over again every year. And it has been six years, today was the seventh year since..., well, since Sasuke left for Oto Gakure and the power Oroshimaru promised him. It's not as if they haven't seen Sasuke since, they have, but that had seemingly made it worse. For Sakura, that is. As they first encountered Sasuke after he betrayed Konoha, it had been then eleven months and three days since that night, Sakura had been determined to either bring the Uchiha prodigy back or kill him with her own hands. Sasuke had in turn been impressed how much stronger Sakura has gotten, but that didn't seem to make it any easier on Sakura, she still lost the fight. Sasuke, for once, has not belittled her, only advised her to train a bit more on her taijutsu and disappeared in a puff of smoke. The routine had been started. Sakura had been training every single day since then, sometimes sitting for hours over some medical books and trying to get herself to learn medical jutsus far too complicated and complex for Naruto to even think about. She worked herself sore at the hospital, sometimes going so far in her healing the wounded that she often times fell unconscious, chakra depleted. Other times she would train with Kakashi from dawn till dusk, or the other way around. It seemed that training and work at the hospital was taking all her time and all her thoughts. On missions she was restless, eager to fight everyone and everything, so Tsunade started giving her A and S ranked missions more often then not. Sakura completed them all, sometimes with more blood-flow then necessarily. But despite all that and the fact that Tsunade said Sakura might be stronger then she, one day always managed to send Sakura crashing into reality and hard. The day Sasuke left, the anniversary of that day actually. And today was that day. Naruto was almost sacred as to what Sakura would be doing. Every single year it was different and depressing all the same. The first year she cried the whole day not even bothering to say that she is not up to training, the second year she spent the day in the Uchiha district, cleaning everything, the third years she sat at the docks, looking out at the water and doing nothing, her eyes were completely empty and Naruto had feared that they had lost her, the forth year she was sitting in the archives and reading every single book on the Uchiha clan and there are many books, many very thick books, the fifth year she was writing letters to Sasuke, one more depressing as the other, the sixth year she spent the day on that damned stone bench talking to herself. Naruto feared what she would do this day.

Arriving at the training grounds Naruto spotted Sai who was drawing something and raised his arm to greet him as he saw Sakura coming towards them. In the distance she looked normal but as she came near, Naruto saw the dark bags beneath her blood-shed eyes and knew that she'd spend the night crying. But before he could say anything, Sakura jumped in a tree and he saw as she took an i-Pod out of her pocket and inserted the ear buds. He came up to the tree and Sai joined him, both ready to ask her questions as the heard her voice, singing along to the song they couldn't hear. Naruto's blood froze as he recognized the song.

"She put him out, like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette

She broke his heart; he spent his whole trying to forget

We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time

But he never could get drunk enough to get her of his mind

Until the night."

Naruto and Sai exchanged worried looks buth neither dared to say something, the just listened to her sing.

"He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger

And finally drank away her memory

Life is short, but this time it was bigger

Then the strength he had to get up of his knees

We found him with his face down in the pillow

With a note that said 'I'll love her till i die'

And when we buried him beneath the willow

The Angels sang a whiskey lullaby."

Tears were streaming down the face at the time she came to end of the choirs. Naruto just hoped that she didn't take that song all too seriously.

"La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la."

She had a beautiful voice and it touched Naruto's heart so deeply that a few tears slipped down his own cheeks.

"The rumors flew, but nobody knew how much she blamed herself

For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath

She finally drank her pain away a little at a time

But she never could get drunk enough to get him of her mind

Until the day."

Her tears continued flowing, faster and faster, her voice cached a few times but she sung, either way. She was too far gone to stop; she was half drowned in her pain.

"She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger

And finally drank away his memory

Life is short, but this time it was bigger

Then the strength she had to get up of her knees

We found her with her face down in the pillow

Clinging to his picture for dear life

We laid her next to him beneath the willow

While the Angels sang a whiskey lullaby."

How much pain must a human endure to sing so bitter-sweet? How many tears have to flow to drown the pain? What torture do a heart and soul go through to scream their pain so loud? Does it ever stop, that circle of pain and suffering? Will love ever be painless? Do our loved ones sometimes deserve the pain we go through for them? Are they worth it?

Will the pain ever stop? Will that broken and shattered heart ever mend? Is there anything more painful in this world then to lose the one person you love, that one person who makes you who you are, who completes your soul? Can a heart that suffered that kind of pain ever love and trust again?

"La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la

La la la la la la la, la la la la la la la."

The song stopped and Sakura's voice died slowly with the last 'la', only to return a second later in a tiny, pained whisper to break Naruto's heart a little more.

"Sasuke-kun... I'll love you till I die..."

Naruto almost cried out as pain seized his heart in a vice-grip, his tears never stopped flowing. He realized that his own pain at losing his best friend, his brother was nothing compared to the agony Sakura must feel every single day of her life. He admired her even more, and suddenly he understood why she spent these days like she did, then if she didn't let that pain out, give her heart and soul freedom to breathe she would have died from a broken heart long ago.

And as he watched his best friend, sister and mother cry, he knew that he would do anything to bring Sasuke back. He would stop the world, he would kill Itachi himself, hell he would kill the entire human population, if it were needed to bring him back and stop Sakura's suffering.

"I'll bring him back, Sakura-chan. I'll bring him back, even if I have to drag him here kicking and screaming. I'll rather die myself the watch you suffer anymore. That is a promise, Sakura-chan."

She didn't hear his whispered words. Her mind was in the past, remembering her time with Sasuke, the night he left, the day she saw him again for the first time, their meeting in the forest near Mist two years ago as she met his team and as he looked at her with so much pain in those onyx orbs and told her to go, not to look back, whispering to her to stay safe, holding her hand a little longer, watching her go, long after she had said her goodbye.

Those memories will stay with her till she finds him and brings him back.

**THE END**

**A****N: **That's it for now. I just love the song and had to write a story with it. I'm thinking about writing a sequal, but only if you want. Tell me how you like my story and perhaps vote for a sequal?

Cookies for reviewers!

Jasmin


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